We recently switched to a new web hosting service, Advantagecom Networks, Inc. Our old hosting company, Total Choice Hosting, was fine, but they only offer web site hosting services. We (Bill and Alan) wanted to be able to do things that didn't fall within the umbrella of a simple web site. At Advantagecom Networks we are renting a slice of a Linux server (a Virtual Private Server, or VPS) with guaranteed resources and the ability to run whatever programs we want, within the constraints of the resources we're buying. For now, Alan is the Unix administrator for this system.
The following is a list of some of the major additions we're working on.
e-Mail Gateway: Institutions have been adding restrictions (blocking SMTP traffic on port 25) to outgoing e-mail in order to combat viruses. IBM and UCSB have both done this recently. Alan has written a mail-forwarding gateway that allows us to get around these restrictions. If you're having this problem, contact Bill or Alan to see if this service can help you.
Shared Address Book: I (Bill) regularly use several machines. It is tough to keep address books synchronized among these systems. Not only that, my address book overlaps with Debbie's, and others. I'm hoping to create a family address book that is accessible from popular e-mail clients including Outlook, Outlook Express and Thunderbird. I'm hoping to use OpenLDAP to do this.
WebDAV: An internet-resident disk drive. Great for collaborating on and sharing files by centrally locating them on the Internet.
More Web Sites: At TotalChoice Hosting, although we could create as many subdomains as we liked, they had to be part of a "single web site." There are no such constraints on our new VPS. We can host as many web sites as we like. If there is a web site you want to host, contact Bill to discuss it. We can get domain names for as little $8 per year. We're in the process of setting up 1inchman.com for Alan and acmsquared.com for Alvin.
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